Month: October 2011

You may THINK you have the best product known to man (and woman)kind, but why is it then that you keep losing sales to a competitor with a weaker product that is more expensive?

How about the last time someone said, “Your client list is really impressive. We’ll definitely get back to you,” but never did?

Losing what should, by all accounts, be sure-fire, dead-cert sales can make even the most veteran of salespeople a little, well, bewildered.

“What went wrong?” they ask, scratching their heads. Often, it’s the seemingly minor things that make all the difference…

Here are five ways you may be leaving money on the proverbial table  and what you can do to turn things around:

1. You Fail to Grab Attention

A poor advertisement will pull in more sales than a great one IF it is better targeted. By that I mean, knowing your buyer well enough to write a headline that calls out directly to her. Writing a headline is easy, but does yours REALLY want to make your prospects take notice and want to know more?

Most people sum up a story or list a feature in their headlines. But a headline that is too general or bland will not stand out or get noticed. To be effective, it should be specific to your audience. Try incorporating a benefit that will entice your readers to read on. Or ask a question, state a startling fact or statistic (backed up in the rest of your copy), or create some kind of intrigue.

Again, it all boils down to knowing what your customers want. An easy way to determine this is to survey your existing customers to see what attracted them to buy from you in the first place.

2. You Merely Inform, Rather than Build Desire

Desire is one of the most powerful motivators of all. Think about it, we all want to feel loved and accepted. Most of us want to do better, feel better, be better . . . and will press that ‘order now’ button based on pure emotion, later justifying the purchase decision using logic.

The problem is if you don’t recognise these emotional wants and needs in your buyer profile, then you can hardly use them in your marketing message to connect with and so persuade your prospects to buy.

3. You Don’t Give People Reason to Trust You

The very act of buying can be risky, especially when done online. So you have to give prospects a reason to trust you. Offer them a money-back guarantee, if possible. Be sure you come across as authentic and professional. And certainly back up any claims you have made about your product, service or business. You can also show you walk your talk by using customer testimonials and case studies.

4. You Don’t Test Your Promotional Copy

Many people will go the trouble of writing content for their website, or copy for their sales letter, but not bother to test it. They leave it as it is. That’s fine . . . IF it does a handsome job of selling for you. But what if it doesn’t? And even if it does, how do you know it couldn’t reap more sales?

The key to any and all advertising and marketing copy is to test, improve, and test it again. By doing so you can be sure of achieving the highest possible response rate.

5. You Fail to Ask For the Sale!

There is no point overcoming every other sales barrier, only to ignore the close. Every piece of copy should have a call to action  and every phone or face-to-face sales presentation should end by attempting to close the deal. So be sure to direct your prospects as to what they need to do next, why they need to this (what’s in it for them? What’s the big benefit?), how they need to do it, and by when.

NB: My blog post “Why People Will — and Won’t — Buy From You” lists more reasons why people aren’t buying your products or services, and gives 14 other reasons why prospects WILL become your customers. If you have any to add, or have any thoughts, please share with others in the blog post’s comments box.